Until he is forty, a man may be led under Providence into forming a connection with a woman of suitable age and family.

After that age he will never look at any girl out of her teens, and either perpetrates a folly or does not marry at all.

If the Danvers family is not to become extinct, or to be dragged down by a _mesalliance_, measures must be taken at once." Evelyn winced at the allusion to the extinction of the Danvers family, of which Charles and Ralph were the only representatives.

She felt keenly having failed to give Ralph a son, and the sudden smart of the old hurt added a touch of sharpness to her usually gentle voice as she said, "I cannot see what _has_ been left undone." "No, my dear," said Lady Mary, more suavely, "you have fallen in with my views most sensibly.

I only hope Ralph--" "Ralph knows nothing about it." "Quite right.